


A Brief & Early Chronology Of Selina Kyle

by byzantium



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 12:38:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byzantium/pseuds/byzantium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Selina remembers gold (the rich burnished gleam of it by candle-flicker) is at the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Flora Street; hail Mary, full of grace, lead us out from the darkness into the light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Brief & Early Chronology Of Selina Kyle

  


The first time Selina remembers gold (the rich burnished gleam of it by candle-flicker) is at the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Flora Street; hail Mary, full of grace, lead us out from the darkness into the light. The hand of the gang marks her in the same street, which is as good a divine vengeance as any, but her vows were made before she ever saw an altar and the city of Gotham is kinder than any porcelain virgin.

*

She hits her head against the door when she falls, and it takes five minutes for the world to come back into focus. The Duchess is watching her, dangling the emerald pendant to scatter light on the walls like a taunt; Selina wants to heave, wants to leave this bedroom with her neck distinctly un-snapped, but most of all she wants to strip the flesh from the bones of her mark-who-wasn’t, from the bones of the runners who’ll probably kill her if the Duchess doesn’t, from the bones of every silver spoon parasite who smiles serenely down from a fifty floor highrise and sermonises.

The shadow falls over her, but hand touches neck rather than boot. _Naughty boys, sending a baby. What are you, twelve?_

Her protest is caught by fingers which tighten their grip -- the world gets darker. _Can you do better?_

Yes, Selina can do better. And she does.

*

Gotham is made for runners, jumpers, dancers: give the city your trust and she’ll give you her grace, all her dark alleys and derelict buildings -- if you’re good, if you’re the best. Selina is the best. And she gives back to Gotham, because theirs is a relationship of equals, and a lady always pays her debts. But she’s selfish too: she takes a ruby for the gleam of it, the red a badge of honour and intent against the black of her evening dresses, cool and later warm in the hollow of her neck. A bike for the thrill of that first ride, attacking the backroads of the city in the wolfing hour with only her reflexes and the scantest tuition, breath catching in her throat at each tight corner. Silk slip and a rabbit fur coat because clothes have never felt like that against her skin before (and if it’s only empty luxury and nothing like love, Selina knows no difference).

But you cannot bite the hand that feeds you here, as in every other city that ever was, and most of her ill-gotten hard-earned gains go to the petty kings and their overlords, each link in the chain of the sprawling networks of power which span her home. The better you are, the more they want of you; the more you can give, the more likely they are to shackle you to their side or eat you alive.

Selina has never been one for collars, and she’s no man’s meal: she gives to the Duchess, too, for those early lessons; to Ted Grant, who teaches her the direct hits which come less naturally than deflections, and who almost understands; to her own supplicants, because sometimes it’s not what you can do but how many debts you have to call in which makes the biggest difference in the end.

*

Penitentiary is hilarious. That they think they’ll keep her there is even better. She stays for a month -- for the rice pudding and a holiday, they’re saying on her block, and that’s just fine by her; _sometimes a girl just needs a break_.

*

“I hope you’re as good as you say you are.”

Selina Kyle is a solitary animal, but he wants to turn a heist into high art and what can she say? She’s a sucker for a challenge like that (nothing more delicious than money in the bank and a fake on the wall).

“This is in the flesh, not however it is you like to play. Worry about your painting, sweetie; don’t worry about the doors.”

*

It’s couched as a private scholarship, but the boy’s no fool; he comes from the East side too. Three years training in Paris, secondments to London and Milan to be fully paid for if attained -- it’s a dream, it’s a liability, but it’s also a way out (abstract kindness and scrupulous self-preservation both, that clause of the contract: banishment). The pages on exclusivity and approvals for commissions are no surprise: the Cat is known for her discerning taste, and a regard for her territory which borders on the savage.

He goes, he learns, he sends more than she asks for. Black, always black.

*

She doesn’t believe it, at first. There’s no such thing as a clean slate. But it taunts her in the moments when the mark on her forehead feels daubed on in ash ( _remember thou art dust_ ), when the noose gets tighter about her neck because the gods of her little world don’t understand the art to what she does. Or worse: they understand, but don’t care.

A clean slate, he promises. The only clean slate.

If she can’t kill her gods (and the Cat is only a woman for all that she’s her own myth, she knows the natural order of her city), then she’ll kill herself with nine keystrokes.


End file.
